


free burger for a kiss

by let_them_be_happy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Minor Spoilers, Season/Series 12 Spoilers, Valentine's Day, ha charlie's dead, sam's a horrible but supportive brother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 13:49:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9744731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/let_them_be_happy/pseuds/let_them_be_happy
Summary: The sign hanging in the restaurant’s window advertises free meals for Valentine’s Day. It doesn’t say what you have to do in order for the meal to be free.-Or, Valentine's Day isn't Lonely Drifter Christmas for Dean and hasn't been for a while.





	

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by Qdoba's free burritos if you kiss someone

The sign hanging in the restaurant’s window advertises free meals for Valentine’s Day. It doesn’t say what you have to _do_ in order for the meal to be free.

This is how Dean ends up standing in front of the cash register with his jaw hanging open because he doesn’t read the fine print. Sam’s standing right behind him, clearly trying not to look like a crazy person by bursting out laughing in the middle of a fairly crowded restaurant. Cas is just to the side doing his whole squinty eyed “I don’t understand humanity” thing.

But Dean wants his free meal, cause you don’t tempt a man with free food only to provide a caveat at the last minute. Anyway, it stands that his only options are his brother (and there is no end to the depth of how _wrong_ Dean finds that) and his best friend. His…very pretty best friend who he may or may not find very attractive.

But that has nothing to do with Dean’s current situation. The teenage cashier looks increasingly bored while one of his coworkers in the back looks like she’s as bad off as Sam is, judging by the way her face is slowly getting redder and redder.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Dean says, _so_ done with this, with everything really, but most especially his stupid brother right now. He grabs Cas by the front of his shirt, ignores Sam losing his self control, and kisses Cas. In the middle of a restaurant. In Midwest United States. For a free meal.

Dean hates his life so much.

The kiss is over before it begins, but it’s enough to leave Dean a little pink in the cheeks. Sam’s very loud laughter does nothing to help with Dean’s embarrassment as the cashier hands Dean his tray - complete with burger, fries, and an empty soft drink cup. He takes it, continues to ignore his brother, and stomps over to a booth _far_ away from the cash register.

Cas follows, obviously more than a little confused, and settles himself on the other side of the booth from Dean. It’s only after Dean has sat down that he realizes he doesn’t actually have a drink, so as soon as Cas sits, Dean stands back up to go get a drink.

He runs into Sam at the drink dispensers and continues to ignore his brother, who is still snickering about the entire thing. Dean glares at him just long enough to convey to Sam how _not okay_ the entire thing is in the hopes that it might get Sam to shut up.

It does, but only until they reach the booth where Cas is patiently waiting with Dean’s food. “Gee, Dean, I didn’t know -” is all Sam manages to get out before Dean points a very adament finger at him.

“Shut up” is all Dean actually says, but Sam reads into what Dean isn’t saying, and he suddenly gets a sinking feeling in his stomach. Meanwhile, Cas is sitting next to Sam, still confused, but fairly certain he just broke some sort of unspoken rule with Dean. As if that wasn’t odd enough, it’s Dean who addresses what just happened first. “Cas, listen,” Dean says when he comes up for air, pausing in devouring the totally-not-worth-it burger. “I’m sorry about all -” here Dean waves a hand in the general direction of the cash register “- that. I just - I wanted a free burger, man.”

Cas nods, cause that’s what Cas does. He looks after the Winchesters, he ignores the fact that the kiss was actually kind of nice now that he’s had a moment to reflect on it, and he pretends that he’s not more certain than ever that he is in love with the one and only Dean Winchester. Stupid, stubborn Dean Winchester who, to Cas’s knowledge, has never shown an interest in people of the male persuasion let alone little failure of an angel Castiel.

Besides, he’s their _brother_. Brothers love each other but not like that. (Cas may or may not have run across a Supernatural fanfiction site at one point. Least to say, it was very interesting.)

“I know,” Cas says and turns to look out of the window just beside him. Dean frowns at that response, pausing mid-chew to try and solve the puzzle that is Cas’s blank face. On Cas’s other side, Sam shakes his head and mutters into his salad something about oblivious idiots or something like that. (Cas takes a page out of Dean’s book and steadfastly ignores Sam because Sam knows, has to know if he’s making snide comments about oblivious idiots in love.)

They finish lunch without another incident and head back to the Bunker, Dean blasting music so Cas knows he isn’t mad at him.

* * *

It’s several hours later when Dean decides to actually address the mess of emotions in his chest, since he’s not gonna get anywhere by staring at the board tracking down Kelly Kline.

There’s no doubt he loves Cas, he knows that. But what Dean can’t figure out is whether it’s familial love or romantic love and if it is romantic love, what’s he gonna do about it. He tosses his relationship with Sam around in his head for a while, since he’s certain that’s familial love. (He will never get the discovery of slash fans out of his brain no matter how hard he tries. There is not enough brain bleach in the world for that.)

Dean spends forty-five minutes comparing his relationship with Sam to his relationship with Cas and comes up off by the slightest amount. So Dean decides to dig through some of his history. He refuses to touch his relationship with Lisa with a fifty-foot pole, so Dean turns back to his relationship with Cassie all those years ago - over a decade at this point. It’s fuzzy, but Dean gets some solid points from what he can remember.

It surprises him that it doesn’t surprise him that his relationship with Cas matches up better with his relationship with Cassie than it does  his relationship with Sam. That should probably concern Dean, but he’s a little distracted by the fact that he is definitely in love with Cas. No surprise, Dean needs to tell someone who’s _not_ Cas, and since Charlie’s dead and Kevin’s dead and all of their friends are dead, Dean gets up to go find Sam.

Sam’s in the kitchen making himself a sandwich when Dean finds him. He glances up when Dean walks in, an amused smile crossing his face without his permission. “Hey. You want one?” Sam gestures to the sandwich in front of him and frowns when Dean shakes his head no. “What’s up?”

Dean stands in the kitchen, his hands in his pockets, and he tries to figure out how to phrase what he wants to say. “Hypothetically,” he starts, cause you can never go wrong with hypothetical situations. “What would you say if a human was in love with an angel?” Sam smiles after a beat and shakes his head, neither of which bode well for Dean. “What?”

Sam shakes his head again. “Nothing, Dean, it’s just…” He puts the sandwich makings down and turns to face Dean, leaning against the counter. “I owe Charlie twenty bucks.” Sam taps his fingers against the counter’s edge while Dean tries to figure out what Sam’s talking about.

Dean has no idea what Sam’s talking about. “What?”

Sam rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling. “Charlie. She bet me that you’d come clean about your feelings first, I bet that Cas would.” His smile starts to slip a little. “Guess this means twenty more bucks for me then.”

Really, Dean would like to be surprised that Sam _knew_ before Dean did, but there’s something about Sam and Charlie’s bet that digs at him. “You bet Cas would admit his feelings first? Come on, man, where’s the brotherly support?” Sam shrugs and has that look on his face of “You know how you are with feelings” and, okay, that is a good point. Once Dean’s done being indignant, he looks at Sam again. “You knew, huh? For how long?” Sam snorts, and, again, really not a good sign.

“Years,” Sam says, and Dean has to a double take because what? “Man, you two have been horrible. Especially after you got out of Purgatory.” Sam groans. “I thought you were gonna resort to sad love songs and late night ice cream sessions if Cas didn’t get out of Purgatory soon.” When Dean gathers his wits enough to actually process Sam’s expression, it’s clear that his brother is teasing him.

“You’re a bitch,” Dean says, and Sam just grins bigger.

“Go get him, jerk,” Sam replies, and Dean, for once, does.

* * *

Dean almost goes through the entire bunker trying to find Cas before he finds the angel where he’d been earlier, only Cas was on the computer and trying to look up information. “Hey, Cas. How’s it coming?”

Cas doesn’t look up from where he’s squinting at the computer. “Slow. Kelly’s still managing to stay under everyone’s radars.”

Dean huffs out an amused sound and leans against the table next to Cas. “We’ll find her.” Cas hums, and then silence. After a few moments, Dean clears his throat, obviously coming to the conclusion that it’s now or never. “Hey, Cas, you got a second?”

That’s apparently enough for Cas to tear his attention away from the internet and onto Dean’s face. “Of course, Dean. What do you need?” He looks up at Dean, and Dean can’t say he’s never had any particular thoughts involving Cas looking up at him like that.

“I, uh.” Dean coughs once, his cheeks turning pink. “Sam told me about this bet he apparently had with Charlie - not that it matters now.” Cas nods, waiting for Dean to elaborate. “Apparently Charlie bet that I would come clean about my feelings - my feelings for you - before you came clean about your feelings for me.” Cas has a good enough poker face that his jaw doesn’t drop open, which makes Dean a little frustrated. “Sam apparently bet that you’d come clean first. I mean, talk about brotherly support,” Dean says, trying to lighten the mood that’s fallen around them. “I was, uh, I was wondering if, maybe, there was anything to what Sam was saying.

I mean,” Dean continues after a pause, where Cas didn’t immediately speak up. “I spent an hour in here earlier trying to figure out if I was in love with you or not and apparently I am. According to Sam, I’ve been in love with you for a few years now - did you know I was apparently unbearable after Purgatory? Anyway,” he says when Cas just looks at him. “That’s all I wanted to talk about.” Dean can feel the jitters and doubt creeping up on him when Cas continues to be silent. “Okay.” He stands off of the table, ready to leave, when Cas suddenly grabs his arm.

For a full thirty seconds, neither of them know what to say. “I don’t want to be Ishim,” Cas says quietly, breaking the odd silence.

Dean huffs out a laugh and lets Cas pull him closer. “You’re not Ishim, Cas. Ishim was obsessed,” he replies just as quietly. “You’re in love. And I’m not exactly rejecting you here.” Cas still looks pained though, so Dean threads the fingers of his hand of the arm that Cas isn’t holding with the fingers of Cas’s free hand. “Hey. We’ll figure it out, okay?”

Cas nods, taking a deep breath before speaking. “Can I kiss you, Dean?” He looks up at Dean again, and Dean knows exactly why his heart feels like it’s doing gymnastics in his chest.

“Of course you can, Cas. Just as long as it’s not for a free burger,” Dean adds with a cheeky smile. Cas just rolls his eyes before leaning up to kiss Dean properly.

(If Sam goes back to that restaurant and gives the employee who couldn’t keep herself from laughing five bucks, then Dean and Cas never have to know.)

**Author's Note:**

> so, fun fact: i accidentally posted this three different times because ao3 kept crashing because, hello, valentine's day rush. the extras are gone, but the story still lives on!


End file.
